Stringed tea bags and disposers therefor

ABSTRACT

A self-contained disposer for transfer thereto from a conventional cup, whether centered in a saucer or not, of steeped tea bags of predetermined contour, so designed and positionable as to avoid outer spillage while in the course of such transfer, with means along the route, in keeping with the orientation of the movable bag, for automatically effecting the deposit of such bags in said disposer in an orderly array relative to their contour, and for simultaneously girdling the strings attached thereto in order to facilitate their manual removal from said disposer by a common grasp thereof.

United States Patent [72] lnventor Louis W. Rosen New York, N.Y. (2018 North Bay Road, Miami Beach, Fla., 33140) [211 App]. No. 722,096 [22] Filed Apr. 17, 1968 [45] Patented Apr. 20, 1971 [54] STRINGED TEA BAGS AND DISPOSERS THEREFOR 1 Claim, 10 Drawing Figs.

[52] U.S. Cl 220/2333, 99/290, 99/77.l [51] Int. Cl A41g 19/00 [50] Field of Search 99/77.1, 171 (l), 295, 323, 279, 289, 290; 220/2383; 206/ .5

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,596,133 8/1926 Wellen 220123.83

2,042,039 5/1936 Cooper 99/1711 2,323,468 7/1943 Hevers 99/295 2,328,599 9/1943 Armstrong 99/295 2,591,606 4/1952 Reed 99/295 3,379,331 4/1968 Kamlet.. 206/.5 3,403,618 10/1968 Lagg 99/77.1X

Primary Examiner-Frank W. Lutter Assistant Examiner-Steven H. Markowitz PATENTEU APR 2 01971 IN V EN TOR.

S'HWGED 'lllEA EAGfi AND D1SPOSERS THEREFOR This invention is designed as a further improvement on tea bag disposers and confines the use of the disposer only to a bag of chosen contour, and with a conventional string attached thereto in a relatively chosen spot, with novel construction in said disposer for receiving and housing said bags in orderly array relative to their contour and orientation on transfer, following their steepage in a cup, whether centered in a saucer or not, and for facilitating their removal by way of a common grasp of all their strings left girdled together upon consummation of such housing.

As to such tea bags, my disposer compels the use of those with such contour and stringed orientation as to have any drippings therefrom, upon accidental removal thereof, in unaligned direction, from a cup without the benefit and protection afforded by said disposer, confined to those converged at one particular spot rather than from a multiple of places less handy to avoid.

As to the disposer, the object is to have a receptacle of simple construction and producible at little expense, to which the transfer of a steeped bag can be quickly made with perfect safety against outside drippings through a sliding and centrally guided operation of said bag along supporting structure, as compared with a shaky and insecure hold on same when left dangling by a string held aloft in the course of such transfer, and to have the use of my disposer universally applicable to all types of conventional cups, with or without a saucer underneath.

Other features of my invention and of the application thereof, and further details of my improvement will be set forth as this specification proceeds. 1t is understood, however, that the invention is not limited to this particular disclosure, but is susceptible of many changes and modifications which may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of this invention.

For a more particular description of my invention, reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings, forming part hereof, in which:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation of my device, showing it in operational position alongside a cup and saucer depicted in fragmentary form, with a tea bag on the inside of the fonner, suspended by its string attached to one corner thereof, ready to be transferred in such oriented position by a sliding operation along supporting surfaces to the well of said disposer, and indicating also the substantially upright position the bag would assume in said well after such transfer.

FIG. 2 is a front elevation of my device.

F16. 3 is a vertical section taken along the line 3-3 of FIG. 2, looking in the direction of the arrows. FlG. 41 is a cross section taken along the line M of F161. 5, looking in the direction of the arrows.

F1G. 5 is a plan view of my device, showing the cutout in its roof in diamond-shaped form in complements] relation to a diamond-shaped bag shown, by broken lines for illustrative purpose, fitting freely therein.

FIG. s is a side view merely of the tea bag of a selected contour, shown oriented in diamond-shaped form from the string attached to it at one corner thereof, and showing also, by way of illustration, the one fixed position where any drippings therefrom would emanate in consequence of the manner of such attachment.

FEG. '7 is similar in all respects to the view and illustration shown in H6. s, except that it relates to a bag of the folded type, but coinciding as to area and contour with that shown in the former FIG.

FIG. 8, presented for the purpose of comparison, is a side view of the conventional bag, shown oriented in square form from the string attached to it midway along one of its sides, and showing also by way of illustration the plurality of positions where any drippings therefrom may indiscriminately emanate in consequence of the manner of such attachment.

FlG. 9 is a side view of a round tea bag that may be used alternatively in my device with complemental provision therefor, suspended by its string at any chosen spot along its periphery, and showing also by way of illustration the one fixed position where any drippings therefrom would emanate in consequence of the manner of such attachment.

FIG. 10 is a fragmentary view of my device as positioned in FIG. 5, sufficient to show the round cutout in its roof as an alternative to the diamond-shaped form depicted in the latter FlG., and indicating also, by broken lines for illustrative purpose, a round-shaped bag fitting freely therein.

Throughout the drawings, similar reference characters indicate similar parts.

In the accompanying drawings my improved device consists of a well or compartment, to which a steeped tea bag of the novel design and orientation disclosed herein may be transferred from a cup through the medium of its attached string, formed by the sides 1, the back 2, the bottom or flooring 3, the front edge of which is concavely coterrninous with the facing 41, the top edge of which facing is beveled toward said well and is considerably lower than the top edges 5 of said sides as can be readily seen in FIGS. 1 and 3. Meeting these top edges and proceeding in a downward direction are the edges 6, which are so pitched from said juncture as to reach a more frontward position at its lower end, where it connects with the top of the vertical edges 7 of the sides 1, in line with the contiguous ends of the facing 4. Below the sides 1 and in continuation thereof is a stand consisting of the walls 8, rearwardly ooterminous with said sides. At the front of the walls ti are the concaved edges 9 of said stand, recessed an appreciable distance from the vertical edges 7, below which concaved edges are the toes 10 designed to give stability to the disposer in the maintenance of a standing position. At the top of the back 2 is the centrally located indent l1, sufficiently flared to facilitate the insertion therein of the conventional string attached to a tea bag as a resting place at its free end after the transfer of such bag from a cup to said disposer. Located between the inner surfaces of the sides 1 is a sloped roofing of two integrated segments, as clearly shown in FIGS. 1, 3 and 5, the front or lower one of which segments, identified herein as part 12, having its free end appreciably inward of the facing a, and the rear or upper one of which segments, identified herein as part 13, having its end terminate against the inner surface of the back 2 and a short distance below its top, immediately below the guiding bar hereinafter referred to, and having in its entire reach the diamond-shaped cutout 14 as plainly shown in FlG. 5, with sufficient margin, as shown by the broken lines in said FlG., to freely admit the complementally shaped and oriented tea bag 15, or the alternative bag 16, the latter being merely folded over for more steepage exposure without losing the contour of bag 15.

In the course of making use of my device for transfer thereto of a saturated tea bag, it is first placed in contiguity with the cup 17, as shown in FIG. 1, at which time the adjacent edge of the saucer 18 has unobstructed clearance because of the recessed positions of parts 9 and 10. Secondly, the string 19 of the bag is passed through the center slit of the guide 20, such admittance being facilitated by the flare at the free end of said guide located a short distance from the entrance to said disposer. As the string is thereafter pulled rearward while travelling through said slit, the bag 15 is lifted from the cup on to the upper surface of the lower segment 12 of said roof in a sliding operation between one of its sides and the opposing surfaces en route. An uninterrupted pull on said string will finally cause the bag to reach the top surface of the upper segment 13 under the guidance aforementioned, when it will freely register with, and automatically fall through, the cutout 14 in central alignment with said guide and land in an upright position in the well underneath, as shown by the broken lines in FlG. 1, the first of which will be against the inner surface of the portion near the back 2. The successive free end of the strings may thereupon be rested in the similarly aligned indent 11 of said back, just to keep them in order, although such indent may be used as an auxiliary guide in said movement of string, even though said slit affords complete control. Any subsequent transfers of tea bags from a cup to. my disposer, in

the manner shown, will cause each in turn to stack up against the previous bag in the same vertical position, with their respective strings running through and girded by said slit, as if those bags were hung suspended like garments from a clothes pole. After such accumulation of tea bags in said well, all that is necessary, in a desire to empty the same, is to take hold of all those strings, girded together as one by said slit, and in a single operation lift the several bags as one unit out of the cutout 14, their greater flexibility because of prior steepage making them prone to yield readily on such removal through said cutout. lt will be noted that in this transfer from cup to well there is absolutely no chance of any outside surface being subjected to drippings, if any, unless the bag is carelessly or accidentally dangled away from said disposer for any length of time. The reason for this is that the well in my device is positionable right up against the cup, with its front facing 4 substantially concentric with the opposing side of the cup and with the opposing edge of the saucer underneath being given simultaneously full clearance by the recessed edges 9 of the disposer. The fact is that in the passage of the bag from the top edge of the cup to its initial landing on the lower segment [2 of said roof, the only drippings from said bag that might occur would be first on the upper surface of said segment, which drippings would in turn run down its slope to the bottom 3 of said well through the open space, as appears in FIGS. 1 and 3, between the free end of said segment and the inside of the facing 4, the said facing being all the way beveled at its top edge in the direction of said bottom as a guide toward said well for any stray drippings that may land thereon.

The purpose of presenting the cutout 14 in diamond shape along the path of operation is to have it complemental to the novel orientation of the bags 15 or 16, as determined by the connecting string being attached to one comer thereof rather in the center of any side as with the conventional hookup shown by the bag 21 in FIG. 8. The particular benefit derived from this novel orientation is the fact that any drippings therefrom are funneled and confined just to one outlet as illustrated by the single streams 22 and 22A respectively in FIGS. 6 and 7. This funneled emergence is in sharp contrast to the plurality of emerging streams that are possible along all of the lower positioned side of the conventional bag 21, suspended from its connecting string 198, as illustrated by the spaced streams 228 shown in H6. 8. While the occurrence of drippings on outside surfaces is obviated by the use of my disclosure in combination as mentioned, the problem of avoiding same is more acute when a plurality of drippings must be contended with as from the conventional bag as depicted in FIG. 8.

As an alternative to the bags as depicted in FIGS. 6 and 7, l have presented the round-shaped tea bag 23 as shown in FIG. 9, to which its connecting string can be attached anywhere along the periphery and yet bring about the funneled stream 24 opposite to such connection similar to the effect indicated in FIGS. 6 and 7. For the purpose of accommodating this round bag, l have introduced the round cutout 25 as shown in FIG. 10 as an alternative to the cutout 14, all other parts of my device remaining the same. The attachment of a string to a bag is usually by a small staple, not shown, while at the free end thereof is usually a stapled card or the like, as indicated by part 26, adapted for some legend thereon usually of advertising matter.

lt is apparent that the absence of the roofing composed of the segments 12 and 13 and also of the guide would not militate against the free entry of a bag of limited size of any contour into the well of the disposeron a transfer of the same from a conventional cup by means of the string connected therewith and channeled along a central path by guidance of indent ll alone. However, the inclusion herein of said roofing and of the guide 20 having entrance thereto much closer to the front of the disposer than the position of indent 11 provides respectively the benefits of a more protected housing for the bags so as to keep them within bounds until discarded;

also keeps them in orderly array until so removed, and also makes it possible for a speedy insertion of the string into the guide in view of its closer proximity to the entrance of the well than afforded by the location of indent 11, although as a matter of fact said guide 20 can be made even longer, and accordingly closer to said entrance, than the stretch shown in these drawings. The advantage of such close proximity is of particular importance to a user with unsteady hand who must get the string under mechanical guidance as quickly as possible rather than be obliged to fumble for some such provision as a centralized indent at the very rear of the disposer. Furthermore, the slit in the guide 20 keeps the strings far more securely in place than at the indent 11 for reasons that are quite obvious when both provisions are structurally compared.

While 1 have shown and described one embodiment of my invention, it is obvious that it is not restricted thereto, but is broad enough to cover all structures that come within the scope of the annexed claims.

lclaim:

l. A disposer for the reception of a multiple of tea bags of predetermined contour, each of said tea bags being dependent at one edge thereof from a conventional string, said disposer being a self-contained unit operationally positionable alongside a conventional cup, or a cup in the approximate center of a saucer, said disposer consisting of a compartment comprising a well, the compartment comprising said well including an upright front facing lower in height than that of such cup and inwardly concaved in complemental relation to the adjacent convexity of such cup, parallel sides connected to said facing at both ends, said sides being of uniform design and of a height above that of such cup, the front edges of said sides being recessed from the top edge of said facing sufficiently to clear contact with the adjacent surface of said cup, and the rear edges thereof being joined to a back somewhat higher than the height of said sides, said back having an indent on the top edge thereof, said well having a flooring on a plane with, and joined to, the bottom edge of said facing, the front edge of said flooring is cotenninous with the front of the bottom edge of said facing, the other edges of said flooring being respectively joined to the inner surfaces of said sides and back, with the two latter parts extending below such connection to provide a stand sufiiciently frontward to give stability to said disposer, with a recession in said sides to avoid interference with the intruded edge of such saucer, a sloped roofing, pitched from a comparatively low position at the free end thereof close to and slightly above the top edge of said facing, to the height of said sides at a juncture with said back and equally joined to the inner surfaces of said sides, a cutout in said roof at its upper end in complemental relation to the contour of said bags, an overhead bar with a flared entrance at the free end thereof in central alignment with said cutout and rearwardly joined to said back at a position in central alignment with said indent and a centrally aligned slit through said bar whereby said strings are received by said slit and said indent. 

1. A disposer for the reception of a multiple of tea bags of predetermined contour, each of said tea bags being dependent at one edge thereof from a conventional string, said disposer being a self-contained unit operationally positionable alongside a conventional cup, or a cup in the approximate center of a saucer, said disposer consisting of a compartment comprising a well, the compartment comprising said well including an upright front facing lower in height than that of such cup and inwardly concaved in complemental relation to the adjacent convexity of such cup, parallel sides connected to said facing at both ends, said sides being of uniform design and of a height above that of such cup, the front edges of said sides being recessed from the top edge of said facing sufficiently to clear contact with the adjacent surface of said cup, and the rear edges thereof being joined to a bAck somewhat higher than the height of said sides, said back having an indent on the top edge thereof, said well having a flooring on a plane with, and joined to, the bottom edge of said facing, the front edge of said flooring is coterminous with the front of the bottom edge of said facing, the other edges of said flooring being respectively joined to the inner surfaces of said sides and back, with the two latter parts extending below such connection to provide a stand sufficiently frontward to give stability to said disposer, with a recession in said sides to avoid interference with the intruded edge of such saucer, a sloped roofing, pitched from a comparatively low position at the free end thereof close to and slightly above the top edge of said facing, to the height of said sides at a juncture with said back and equally joined to the inner surfaces of said sides, a cutout in said roof at its upper end in complemental relation to the contour of said bags, an overhead bar with a flared entrance at the free end thereof in central alignment with said cutout and rearwardly joined to said back at a position in central alignment with said indent and a centrally aligned slit through said bar whereby said strings are received by said slit and said indent. 